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Republicans corrupt; not Democrats

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You notice how every time somebody brings up a concrete example of Republican's ripping people off, getting bribed by corporate interests, handing out no-bid contracts and undermining fair voting, there will always be the reply that "Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans." The fact is, it's just not true. Republican corruption is systemic. Democrats don't match in the number of scandals - and more importantly, in the dollar amounts of those scandals.

That's 55,000 hits to 1557, even though I used six different search terms, compared to one.

One might argue that this is just because the Republicans are in power now, and the web is bigger today than it was six years ago. I remind you that the number of Democrats in the House and Senate isn't all that far from a 50/50 split. Also, there are Democrats in state, county and city offices in huge numbers across the country.

There you have it. Based on Google hits Republicans are more than 35 times as corrupt as Democrats.

You may think this is a joke. It's not. Add money to the equation and you get a much bigger difference.

What was the biggest Democratic scandal regarding money? How about Whitewater? How big was it? About $100k. The investigation cost tens of millions, and took six years. The result? "Insufficient evidence to justify criminal charges against President and Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Compare that to Duke Cunningham. He plead guilty to $2.4M in bribes.

How about Abramoff? We're talking $85M in fees.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR won a single no-bid contract known as "Restore Iraqi Oil" (RIO) which has an estimated worth of $7 billion.

Dick Cheney received a $20M severance package from Halliburton when he "retired" to run for VP. Cheney retains 433,000 share-equivalent unexercised stock options at Halliburton.

When Bush Sr. was VP, son Neil Bush was on the board of directors of Silverado Savings and Loan. The savings and loan crisis cost the taxpayers billions of dollars; Silverado's was one of the failures, with a taxpayer cost of about $1 billion.

The Iraq war is a scandal unto itself. It was based on false pretenses, cost tens of thousands of innocent lives, and, likely, a trillion dollars. A clear reading of international law show the war to have been illegal. (The UN did not approve, and there was no imminent threat.)

From where I stand, the Whitewater deal cost taxpayers nothing, but the Republican probe cost tens of millions. For argument's sake, let's say it was a $100,000 crime.

Bad actions by Republicans cost us millions in bribes, billions in bailouts and blank checks and a trillion or so due to an illegal war.

Do the math. Multiply the scandal hits by the dollar amounts.

Republicans are three hundred and fifty million times as corrupt as Democrats.

This is not a joke. The corruption of the Republican party has no peer.

The next time somebody tells you that the Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans, don't let them get away with it.

Re: Republicans corrupt; not Democrats

You're basis of evidence, i.e. a Google search, is illogical and proves nothing.

Any discussion of political corruption by parties invested in the ideology of one party or another is pointless.

Here's my two cents:

- Neither party's ideology, in and of itself, is inherently corrupt.
- Select individuals from both parties are corrupt.
- Select members from both parties will violate the trust and faith of their constituents if it serves their purpose.
- We owe it to ourselves to point out corrupt behavior, ESPECIALLY when the member is our the party we most commonly support.

Incidentally, this post is 14 times more logical than yours...I know, I Googled it.

I remain solely responsible for the content of my messages, and agree to indemnify and hold harmless northern sound source, and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of my message(s). Rock on.

Re: Republicans corrupt; not Democrats

I, too, believe that the values expressed by the Republican party are corrupt.

It is a party of consistent fiscal shortsightedness, despite such empty protestations as "tax and spend" Democrat. George Bush has accrued more national debt than ALL previous presidents, combined. Think about that for a minute. It's mind-boggling.

How many billions have been pissed into the wind in Iraq, with only the war-machine industries actually winning anything in this most hideous perversion of Americanism? Cheney's Haliburton options sure look better now than they did before Iraq. Those guys are making money hand over fist, on the death and misery of others, and destabilizing an already unstable part of the world.

How many schools would that many billions of dollars build? How much good will could you purchase with those sorts of resources, building a better world by rewarding the good things in it, instead of lowering ourselves to the level of the earth's worst criminals?

What a horrid, immoral squandering of our nations resources!!!

How much improvement in our national healthcare system could that kind of resources purchse? Do you really think that profit-centric insurance companies and the ever-growing industry of third party adminstrators will ever improve our system? Because I cannot find the logic in that, considering these are businesses, and the goal of a business is to make the maximum possible profit. Business is a very good tool for getting some things done. It is a disaster for getting other things done...creating a fair and efficient healthcare system among them. Our nation squanders billions on health related problems, has the poorest per capita health of any industrialized nation, and we think this system is working?

How much TRUE security could that many billions purchase? We still move thousands upon thousands of shipping containers through our ports, examining a tiny fraction. We have a National Guard, Customs, and a Coast Guard, all of which would have been a logical place to invest in true security that we feel at home today.

You don't clean up a bad neighborhood by shooting the bad guys. You clean up a bad neighborhood by investing in what's good in it. Eventually, good overcomes anything. Darkness is powerless against light.

The problem with Republicans is that they appeal to the darkness in us. They create simplistic messages which inflame the passions of the weakest thinkers. Just this week, yet more time, money, and energy wasted bringing up a prohibition against gay marriage...not because anyone had any expectation that it was going to go anywhere, but for the simple purpose of inflaming the passion of prejudiced, simplistic people.

I loathe that sort of cynical, wasteful behavior. Especially when I'm writing giant checks to pay for it every year, and the hooligans are spending our country into debt until well after I'm buried and gone.

Re: Republicans corrupt; not Democrats

Sometimes scandals are more deadly than they are expensive. Jon, do you remember Mary Jo Kopechne? Or are Democrats just interested in the monetary cost of scandals..not the cost of life?

So, let's compare:

* Four decades ago a Democrat was in a car accident that killed a woman. The event was suspicious. Was he drunk? Did he try to save her? Did he lie about the event? Did his family interfere with the investigation? There were no witnesses, aside from the Democrat. (Is that a fair analysis? It's been a while, and I was very young at the time.)

* This decade Republicans conspired to start a pre-meditated war. It has killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, including women and children. It has led that country to the brink of civil war. The claimed rationale for the war has been proven false.

The first case digs back 37 years. One person died in an accident. The scandal was the circumstances and possible coverup. It was not pre-meditated.

The second case is with the current administration. Tens of thousands died. It was illegal, pre-meditated, and based on misinformation. It was not the act of one man, but of a large group of complicit Republicans.

Whether you measure in dollars or lives, Republican politicians are broadly and deeply corrupt. Democratic politicians are not.

Re: Republicans corrupt; not Democrats

This is the first administration in our history that is outwardly trying to destroy the country and it's so obvious I'm just shocked that only now is there starting to be discussions about it by the lay folk. I guess it just takes them awhile to figure out what's going on.